Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

I’ve got my end of month figures!!

While I’ve used YNAB for years, I must admit I rarely if ever sit down and reflect on the monthly figures - I usually just move on to the next month. Inspired by Your Money or Your Life, I’d like to start making that a monthly habit.

NOTES
- I only decided to split “Groceries” up into food, household, treats etc last week, so these figures won’t be reflective of future months

- Petrol is artificially low as I filled up on the last day of Jan and will need to fill up tomorrow so we’ve used a tank more than the figures suggest

- “Reconciliation” is the total how much money I was down throughout the month when I reconciled and couldn’t remember a transaction 😳 basically me being disorganised so will be more on top of it next month! 

- Income is 80% of Red’s income, 100% of mine and child benefit. I don’t track his personal spends (20% of his pay) but I track the joint budget and my own.

- This is money actually spent and not a reflection of where I’ve budgeted it into pots etc - it’s just showing money which has actually left my life 😅

FEB 2022 INCOME
Red - £1,785
Me - £1,484.82
Child benefit - £140.60
= £3,410.42

FEB 2022 SPENDING
JOINT
Home bills £784.12
Car £380 [MOT & repairs this month]
TV/subscriptions £23.37

Food £466.34
Household £6.85
Treats £9.85
Pets £51.34 [stocked up on lots of cat litter]

Petrol £69
Family/fun £69.70
Misc £64

Birthdays & celebrations £155.66 [Red’s birthday and an engagement gift]
Home & garden £37.99
Kids £39.35

Conservatory £120

Reconciliation £59.07

TOTAL £2,336.64

ME
Bills & subscriptions £96.73 [includes an online course fee which only has two months left]

Gym £105 [PT sessions, will be much cheaper after this month]

Fun £127.72 

TOTAL £329.45

OVERALL TOTAL £2,666.09

Income - Expenses = £744.33 left (20% saved)

Interesting to peruse it all! Going to come back later to put red/amber/green marks next to each category to reflect on whether I want it to go up or down in future…

Bluegreen143

Bluegreen143 said:

FEB 2022 INCOME
Red - £1,785
Me - £1,484.82
Child benefit - £140.60
= £3,410.42

FEB 2022 SPENDING
JOINT
Home bills £784.12 🟡
Car £380 [MOT & repairs this month] 🟡
TV/subscriptions £23.37 🟡

Food £466.34 🔴
Household £6.85 🟡
Treats £9.85 🟡
Pets £51.34 [stocked up on lots of cat litter] 🟡

Petrol £69 🟡
Family/fun £69.70 🟢
Misc £64 🔴

Birthdays & celebrations £155.66 [Red’s birthday and an engagement gift] 🟡
Home & garden £37.99 🟢
Kids £39.35 🟢

Conservatory £120 🟢

Reconciliation £59.07 🔴

TOTAL £2,336.64

ME
Bills & subscriptions £96.73 [includes an online course fee which only has two months left] 🔴

Gym £105 [PT sessions, will be much cheaper after this month] 🔴

Fun £127.72 🔴

TOTAL £329.45

OVERALL TOTAL £2,666.09

Income - Expenses = £744.33 left (20% saved)

OK, red/amber/green marks indicate I’d like to focus on reducing:

▪️ Food. This is huge!
▪️ Misc. Not even sure what all this was!
▪️ Reconciliation. AKA budget mess ups - enough said 
▪️ My spends should naturally be coming down once I’m done with PT sessions and my online course but I’ll keep a closer eye on all my categories from now on.

Bluegreen143

Not too much to report, but I’ve been tracking away in YNAB.

Cat has to go to the vet tomorrow, which could end up pricey - it’s £60 to start with to register her and pay for the check up (our vet closed so we needed a new one). Fairly sure her issue with peeing everywhere is a medical problem rather than behavioural but we’ll see what the vet says.

Red has ordered £250 of wood to make raised beds as the conservatory is paru going over our vegetable patch. We’ll have less growing space in theory, but I think it’ll be more manageable and allow us to grow the same amount of veg or more. Our old veg patch was big and always turned into a jungle of weeds in the middle and we’d end up not harvesting much because we couldn’t reach/find the actual veg 😅

joedenise

Can I suggest you get a book called Square Foot Gardening from the Library?  I think it might have been renamed Square Metre Gardening now so could be one or the other at the library.  It's great for getting a lot of veg in a small space.  Four feet wide is the maximum width you should have for the raised beds with gaps between each bed in order to get round them as you can then reach the middle as you'll have 2' from each side.

Bluegreen143

Not a very cheerful day today as we ended up having to make the decision to put the cat to sleep ❤️😭 the vet picked up on breathing issues and it turned out she had masses in her abdomen restricting her getting oxygen. We opted not to do further tests - the vet could have done them but did have to advise with her symptoms there wasn’t likely to be a happy outcome especially with her age and suspected diabetes too (hence the peeing) so we decided not to put her through anything. Feels really rubbish, I’ve not had to make that call with a pet before - we’ve lost two chickens but they died naturally.

@joedenise would you believe I have that book! But it didn’t work with our huge veg patch. Looking forward to having raised beds to do it properly. 

Baileys_Babe

Sorry to hear your sad news 🤗

themadvix

Sorry for your loss - it must be very hard to make the decision (I dread the day), but well done for doing the right thing for her. X

joedenise

Sorry to hear about the cat but it's for the best.  Diabetes in animals is quite difficult to control and very expensive for meds - at least it was when we had a puppy with it many years ago.  It's kinder to have them put to sleep.

That's even better that you've got the book already @Bluegreen143!  Always better to have the book than keep borrowing from the library.  I lent my copy to someone and of course it never came back and for the life of me I can't remember who I lent it to to ask for it back!  We've only got a small bit of garden to grow stuff but it would be good to get a bit more stuff in than we managed last year!  DH decided he fancied growing raspberries and strawberries so ended up that's all we grew!

Only one lot of raspberries were worth bothering with so we pulled up the rest so that gives me an area of about 5' wide by 20' to use for veg.  Not much so it would be good to get a decent amount of stuff in there.  I usually do a couple of courgettes in pots plus a few tomatoes and salad stuff also in pots so will continue with that.  Would like to try cabbage and cauliflower again which I haven't grown for years.  Also some peas and beans.  Think I'll get the book out of the library and have a quick look to see how much I'd be able to get in the small bit of garden I've got!

Bluegreen143

Thanks all. Monkey is really sad and said yesterday “I want to build a machine so I can go back to see her again” 💔 (oh sweet little one, we all wish we had that machine!). And Bambi doesn’t understand. She asked this morning “Is it time to bring [cat] back home now?” 💔

Have kept Monkey off school as he’s feeling grotty and has a bit of a sore throat - negative LF test but will do another tomorrow too. They are meant to be going to my folks for a sleepover tomorrow (Bambi’s first ever night away from me!) so I’ll wait and see if he makes a recovery later and how he is overnight - if he’s still feeling unwell we’ll have to cancel. I haven’t mentioned this possibility to him yet as he will be really disappointed 😣 as will Red and I of course 🤣

@joedenise sounds like you have lots of brilliant plans for the garden! This year will really just be herbs, salad and fruit for us because the garden will be in disarray and by the time the beds are in it’ll be too late to plant much. We are also getting rid of the greenhouse. I was for moving it elsewhere in the garden but Red has talked me out of it due to wanting to keep enough lawn for the kids to play on and I put in some new fruit trees which already take up some of that. Going to see if my mum wants the greenhouse.

joedenise

Unfortunately my garden is too small for a greenhouse and most of it is paved anyway which is why I use pots.  It's much easier for me now that I am retired and don't have the strength for doing a lot of digging.  DH isn't really interested in actual gardening just what he gets to eat out of it!